SOURCE: King, Bruce. Review of Between Father and Son, by V. S. Naipaul. World Literature Today 74, no. 3 (summer 2000): 575-76.

In the following review, King finds what he calls unexpected details included in the letters of Between Father and Son.

The letters gathered in Between Father and Son are mostly between V. S. Naipaul, his older sister Kamla, and their father Seepersad Naipaul. The mother seldom writes and seems an outsider to their interests in writing, culture, and becoming independent from her wealthy but insulting family. In one of the last letters before his death, Seepersad remarks that he and his wife have never grown close. The other five children are younger, and a major theme of the letters is the conflict between devoting oneself to a future career, especially as a writer, and helping others in the family gain an education. This was a time in the British...